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RTFA. The guy had no gun in the car (he'd left it locked up in FL), but the MD cops knew he had a CCW permit even though he was a FL resident . . . how is that possible?

From the article: "By statute, records regarding which Floridians have been issued permits are available in a searchable database to out-of-state law enforcement. "

Link to the story that you mention from the Tampa newspaper. Maryland police forces have a history of this kind of thuggish behavior; even now, the MD State Police and the MD press (e.g., the Baltimore Sun) refuse to comment or even report on this story.

Nice try asshole

BTW, the article I've link refers to the exact stretch of highway in question. Also, call boxes were never that useful to begin with. Yea, if your car breaks down and you have to walk along the highway you may eventually come across one and make use of it. But if you're lying in a ditch with two broken legs after an accident, a phone 2 miles down the road is significantly less useful than one in your pocket.

Reeves left the theater to complain to staff, and when he returned, Oulson asked whether Reeves had reported him to management, the sheriff’s office said. The two began to argue and that’s when Oulson threw a bag of popcorn at Reeves, an arrest report said.

I will trust the local news sources over a blog post for a site in the next state over, which happens to be over 300 miles away.

• The shooter, Reeves, is 71. The victim, Oulson, was 43. Oulson's wife is 33.
• Reeves left the theater for a short time. There are no reports locally that he went to retrieve his gun. There are reports that he went to get a manager.
• Once Reeves returned, he was confronted by Oulson as to whether Reeves reported Oulson to the manager. It was at this time that a physical altercation ensued and Oulson was shot.
• All reports I have seen say a bag of popcorn was thrown. Some reports seem to indicate that Oulson threw the bag of popcorn at Reeves.
• Reeves shot once, hitting Oulson in the chest. Oulson's wife was shot in the hand because her hand was between the gun and Ouslon's chest.

There is a very recent article about Reeve's appearance in court and what

with rumored shelf life on the order of the time span to cool a white dwarf to room temperature

From the AP:

During bankruptcy proceedings, Hostess had said that its overall sales had been declining, although the company didn't give a breakout on the performance of individual brands. But Seban is confident Twinkies will have staying power beyond its re-launch.

As for the literal shelf-life, Seban is quick to refute the snack cake's fabled indestructibility.

"Forty-five days - that's it," he said. "They don't last forever."

The city of Tampa, FL says that the cameras have definitely reduced the number of accidents.

The city of St. Petersburg, FL seems to be having more accidents BECAUSE of red light cameras.

It is however, tough to argue against red light cameras when the city of St. Petersburg issued 36,000 red light citations in one year. That's a lot of red light runners!

You would be very surprised how much is costs to run a telco.

Here's a newspaper article that indicates a rental cost for electric poles. $32 per pole per year ads up when you have to run your wires for a few miles, let alone a few thousand miles.

Then there are additional costs for termination, ports, peering or upstream bandwidth, equipment, facilities, real estate, vehicles, labor, insurance, benefits...

Not cheap.

You mean that this story did not happen? http://www2.tbo.com/news/opinion/2012/oct/26/naopino1-a-disturbing-effort-to-influence-the-elec-ar-544704/
Nor the story about the Dem who slashed the tires on the vans that Republicans were going to use to take voters to the polls in 2008 (sorry, I don't have the link to that one anymore). There are many more like those two. It's just that they are very hard to find, since Democrats rarely report on systematic misdeeds by Democrats.

Radio amateurs have a license for using their advanced technology radio equipment, but this does not protect them from misbehaving.

Work for the government. Our local newspaper has a nice searchable database of our salaries: http://www2.tbo.com/fact-finder/government-salaries/?appSession=063158457089375&RecordID=&PageID=2&PrevPageID=1&cpipage=2&CPISortType=&CPIorderBy= I love working in a glass building.

Meanwhile, though more expensive, the Fisker Karma has landed.

but not 100% yet.
Apparently Florida voted to require 50% of their textbook budgets on digital materials by 2015: LINK

I personally don't think that "digital textbooks" have to look and feel like "printed textbooks."
Why does it have to be a replication of a printed book?

Never trust the government. Especially old data from them: http://moneywatch.bnet.com/economic-news/blog/macro-view/manufacturing-surprise-the-us-still-leads-in-making-things/2134/ http://beta2.tbo.com/news/nation-world/2011/jan/31/T2NEWSO1-us-still-leads-world-in-manufacturing-pro-ar-11399/ http://unstats.un.org/unsd/snaama/dnllist.asp http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102761476 http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/120660/20110309/usa-still-leads-manufacturing.htm http://www.mepol.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=214:made-in-america-still-on-top-of-the-manufacturing-game&catid=1:news&Itemid=187 *

The government is still paying farmers to not grow corn. It's called the Conservation Reserve Program.

http://beta2.tbo.com/news/nation-world/2008/jul/11/na-usda-urged-to-end-paying-farmers-not-to-grow-cr-ar-151982/

"At issue is the Conservation Reserve Program, under which the government has paid farmers to stop growing row crops, such as corn and soybeans, on 34 million acres across the country. "

http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/programs/crp/

More likely is that it always was a mixture of zone 9 and zone 10 plant life, but you didn't notice until you started looking for things to validate your belief system.

Untrue. Banyan trees could not survive in St. Pete when I was a kid, but could south of Tampa Bay. They now grow 35 miles north of St. Pete. That Passiflora (you DID click the link, right?) is not a subtle indicator, either. Furthermore, the gardening world is full of people who try to push the limits with interesting stuff, looking for microclimates where they can find them. My dad tried to grow papayas, and failed because they froze. They survive now, in the very same neighborhood. Your claim of a zone 9/10 mix also contradicts the climate charts; there are indeed plants that can grow in multiple zones, but for each zone (and even each half-zone) there are indicator species, that grow in one zone, but not the next. If you've got banyan trees, papayas, and passiflora alata, your zone is not 9, it is 10.

A second datapoint, not plant related, is the water supply. There's also been recent predictions of widespread drought in the 20-40 year future, based on climate models. We can "fix" this with population migration. Tampa, FL, is looking into recycling sewage into drinking water.

I also note you conveniently snipped out the bit about the trees. It is well known that annual weeds are happy colonizers; trees are a good deal slower. If climate zones are really moving 100 miles every 16 years in the Southeast (I actually doubt that, I think the 1990 baseline was not kept up to date), I think that some tree crops may cease to be viable economically because of the long "investment" time.

As to the matter of "waiting for certainty is too late", that derives from two things. #1,the excess CO2 will be with us for a long time (centuries -- see, was that so hard?). #2, the temperature increase lags the CO2, because so much heat is sunk into the oceans. #3, as someone noted, you cannot turn an economy on a dime, so even once we decide to cut back, it will take years to do so. So, whatever observed temperature rise it takes for us to decide to put on the brakes, it will take us years to activate the brakes, AND we will have that higher level of CO2 for a century or so, AND the temperature will continue to rise for decades.

The one place I don't have good data, is on what constitutes "certainty", nor on how fast we could actually turn the economy. If our threshold for "certain" is actually not that far from where we are now, then I am wrong, assuming we flipped from skeptic to certain (as a society) in the space of five years (and stayed there). But as near as I can tell, that is not how things are -- you are certainly an example of someone who has taken the tribal approach (to an insulting level, I might add) and cloaked it in a bogus reverence for Science.

It is very similar to the BP disaster. I'm sure all of the oil companies operate this way BP's luck just ran out.

Actually, it's extremely clear to anyone who knows anything about the industry, that BP is the bottom of the barrel. Sure, other oil companies cut corners, but BP is by far the worst offender.

This can be seen by the lay-person quite easily, just by noting that whenever there has been a major accident in the recent past, BP has been to blame. Deepwater being just one. Take the Alaska oil pipeline leak of just a couple years ago, or BP's refinery explosion in 2005. All three caused by gross negligence on BP's part. By all means, try to name any other major oil company with a recent track record worse than BP's. The only difference this time, is that they hit the disaster jackpot, and the consequences are vastly more catastrophic than BP's more routine failures, which simply result in small fines. It is most appropriate that this disaster has exceeded the Exxon Valdez spill, eliminating any and all debate over the title of the most disastrous oil company in western history.

BP's existence (as a major player) is a result of acquiring numerous other small oil services companies at bottom dollar, and cutting operating costs even lower to bring them into competition. This fact/behavior/mindset has been outlined in numerous after-accident reports, particularly the BP US refinery explosion.

I highly recomend the following article:

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2007/dec/22/bz-victims-of-bp-refinery-explosion-force-company-/

If only in they had predicted an imminent disaster that would overshadow all others in 2007 when that article was written...

If one enters a country without following said country's entry and immigration laws, one is an illegal alien. In many other countries, it is a criminal offense.

The real problem is that said illegal alien entered the country illegally. As someone else mentioned, said person may be nice to his landlord and neighbors and still be a wanted criminal, a child molester, or carrying a contagious disease. How often do you see a surprised friend and/or neighbor on the news saying "He was such a nice guy. I can't believe he did that." If we want to go down the road of terrorism, remember that according to reports the 9/11 conspirators were good neighbors and tenants.

Now, let me demonstrate the fallacy of your argument:

Ok, now suppose someone is an illegal alien. Suppose this person forces a developmentally disabled girl into prostitution and rapes her mentally disabled friend in front of her.
Suppose this person is a member of MS13?
Suppose this person is a serial killer?
Suppose this person is a sexual predator?
Suppose this person is a drunk driver?
Suppose this person is raping his 9 year old daughter?
Still think there is no problem?

Do you see the problem with "supposing"? Even if you point to a specific person, it is still cherry-picking.

Unfortunately, they plan on combining this law with the legal precedent set over here, which means that every subversive in the whole country will have to register with the South Carolina Secretary of State.

..and the guy controlling the camera was arrested, then why is the camera seeming to move whilst the Wii game is played ? Scroll to 2:10 in the raw video here and then back to the start ; I don't remember seeing the ceiling in the first frames, and it doesn't seem particularly zoomed in in those first frames, so why is the ceiling there at 2:10, unless the camera was moved ?

Seems fishy to me.

Just read the article (the actual article rather than the linked blog); this is already being used by the defense attorney to claim the whole search should be invalidated:

Not just inappropriate, but Tampa defense attorney Rick Escobar would argue the moment detectives turned on that video game and effectively seized it, they turned the search warrant into an illegal search.

"I've never seen anything like this," Escobar said after he viewed some of the video. Escobar does not represent Difalco and has no connection to the case.

"All the citizens are thinking, 'Wait a minute, we are paying these people to go out and protect us and here they are playing bowling on our time,' " he said.

"The real question here is have they seized property that wasn't described in the search warrant?" Escobar asked. "Clearly if they're using it, they've seized it and for totally improper purposes, because it's for entertainment. Investigations are not for entertainment."

Actually, the guy was running a chop shop and had a house of stolen goods that will easily be traceable.

These are the scumbags who collect all the stuff from your car that had its window smashed in to grab that thing that is worth $5, still doesn't justify this though. Although this happens all the time where officers go through these drug deals houses and they have all the latest expensive gadgets and toys.

Although to be truthful, I have seen silly stuff like this even on the show COPS. I remember they did some Miama drug raid and found all these silly toys this guy had, everytime they would pull something out they would play with it and set it down.

9 hours of searching though the house, something like a year of previous surveillance leading up to get the warrant for the raid and the operation they listed cost about $4,000. I was surprised they listed the actual cost of the operation, but the previous surveillance had to involve lots of paid man hours of just sitting watching in the car.
Which basically makes the warrant voided and illegal as soon as the cops turned on that Wii.

Shitty ass article on Slashdot cannot even link to a Youtube link or comment by the police, here all of 10 seconds it took me.

Link to video
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=8bc_1253652224&c=1#comments

Link to article and comment by the Department
http://www2.tbo.com/content/2009/sep/21/undercover-drug-investigators-embarrass-polk-sheri/
_____

With guns drawn and flashlights cutting through darkened rooms, Polk County undercover drug investigators stormed the home of convicted drug dealer Michael Difalco near Lakeland in March.

As investigators searched the home for drugs, some drug task force members found other ways to occupy their time. Within 20 minutes of entering Difalco's house, some of the investigators found a Wii video bowling game and began bowling frame after frame.

While some detectives hauled out evidence such as flat screen televisions and shotguns, others threw strikes, gutter balls and worked on picking up spares.

A Polk County sheriff's detective cataloging evidence repeatedly put down her work and picked up a Wii remote to bowl. When she hit two strikes in a row, she raised her arms above her head, jumping and kicking.

While a female detective lifted a nearby couch looking for evidence, another sheriff's detective focused on pin action.

But detectives with the Polk County Sheriff's Office, the Auburndale, Lakeland and Winter Haven police departments did not know that a wireless security camera connected to a computer inside Difalco's home was recording their activity.

The recording obtained by News Channel 8 showed several members of the county's High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) task force entering the house shortly after 8 a.m. According to the search warrant, their mission was to search for drugs, stolen property and the fruits of any illegal drug activity.

Now there are questions on how the impromptu bowling tournament might affect the case against Difalco.

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd denies it will have any effect.

"That absolutely is not true; that doesn't invalidate the search at all," Judd said. "Now the defendant would like for it to invalidate the search, but unfortunately for him, it won't."

Judd, who watched the video during an interview last week, called the situation an embarrassment.

"I'm not pleased that they played that Wii bowling game," Judd said. The sheriff's office oversees the drug task force. Judd said he initiated an internal administrative investigation of the incident.

"That is not appropriate conduct at a search warrant," he said. "But I am less pleased with the supervision that didn't walk in and say, turn that off. That's what supervision should have done."

T

you call the police and let THEM deal with it. That's why we HAVE police to begin with.

That's not what the police are for. The are here to:
Sodomize you during a search
Tase you if you are a minor
Screw the same women while on duty
Steal computer information
Lie and perjure themselves under oath
Threaten you
Rape your children
Murder your children and abuse you

Strange. That's only a 12-hours news window. I'd hate to see the abuses heaped upon us by government employees who are here to keep us safe if it were a counted over a year...

NASA guessed the bag/tools as being worth USD$100,000.00...

I bet that cost factors in stuff like design. Making a new replacement bag and tools must cost quite a bit less, even factoring in the cost of fuel to send it to ISS. Well, unless they're made by a subcontractor, and the contract says NASA has to pay a fixed high price for a replacement.

Except they probably have extra sets already, so they don't even need to make a replacement. Then the real extra cost is only the cost of fuel. Hmm, plus the cost of bureaucracy... Ok, so maybe that $100,000.00 figure is correct after all ;-)

NASA guessed the bag/tools as being worth USD$100,000.00...

I agree with your call for more nuclear power. It's the cleanest power source at our disposal. Even the founder of Greenpeace says so. MORE NUKES, MORE NUKES.

This constant drum beat for wind power is total crap, however

-For starters, for the majority of the area of the US, you can't depend on enough wind with the necessary velocity to sustain the necessary RPM's on the turbine. Think what you want about 'big energy', but, if there was a way for them to essentially generate FREE power don't you think they'd be putting up freaking towers like a madman? But they don't. Because it won't fill the need.

-Second, so many of those crying 'wind power' always want to plop them down on top of a building, or near a residential area. WRONG. Those wind turbines are LOUD. Let me put one in your back yard and you'll run screaming from the house in less than 24hrs.
Not to mention destroying what view you may have. And speaking of destroy, ask the bird population how much they like us sticking a bunch of food processor blades into the air?

Last time when someone critical of Scientology turned up dead, police was happy to believe he committed suicide, even though he had given no prior signs (nor had any reason to) kill himself.

You know that Scientology has infiltrated the police in the US in some cities?

What about an American with an assault rifle? Someone was caught firing an SKS Assault Rifle in Ybor City just last night. Thankfully, no one was injured. I can't believe we let the ban on assault rifles elapse and still maintain that these violations of our liberties are an absolute necessity in order to protect ourselves. Why don't we start by keeping the actual weapons off the streets?

Nice to see it made front page news at the Tampa Tribune

...its hype.

Anyone remember all the dire predictions that the east coast was looking down the barrel of a gun for this year's hurricane season, and man was the cause? That global warming was going to be driving a huge hurricane season for 2006? This is the slam dunk.

Facts:

1. Warming is taking place
2. The planet is still cooler than it has been in recent geologic history
3. The sunn is in a heating phase
4. Mars has shown an increase in global temperatures
5. There are no SUV's, factories, or cans of Pam on Mars
6. While noxious and bad smelling, man's contribution to warming is miniscule compared to the Sun and volacanic activity

And the biggest fact:

There is nothing we can do to slow it or hurry it along. But, our expenditures of energy and voter goodwill in this arena take attention away from areas where we can be effective:

1. Poverty
2. Disease
3. Hunger
4. Slave trade
5. War

Not only that, but regulation we are forcing upon other countries actually prevent them from activities that could bring more wealth and aid to their populations.

And, regulations are preventing the building of cleaner solutions.

Can we get off the Global Warming kick and turn our efforts, money, voter action towards something we can change?

This parent is just like the mom who sued McDonald's because her drunk son got killed after starting a fight while waiting in line at a McDrive... I guess if a judge says it's somebody - anybody - else at fault instead of you, that makes all the guilt magically go away.

Whatever.

it is? it seems like mostly what the 'intelligence' community does in the united states these days is spy on unarmed, constitutionally-protected demonstrators. like these cases, for instance:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11751418/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2006/03/14/AR2006031401520_pf.html
http://www.dailytexanonline.com/media/paper410/new s/2006/03/24/TopStories/Students.Fbi.Lecture.Displ ays.Watch.List-1716066.shtml?norewrite200603281210 &sourcedomain=www.dailytexanonline.com
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/artic le_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001995631
http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?Stor yID=20060214-053955-9494r
http://www.tbo.com/news/metro/MGBTP976FJE.html

Good Question. Leading up to the 2004 election FEMA did a great job of disaster recovery and mitigation in Florida after a bad hurrincane season. Perhaps it might have been easier to justify spending a lot of money in a swing state right before an election?

Now consider this: in Texas, there is a plan afoot -- already approved by the legislature -- to turn over 6000 miles of preexisting roads to a foreign Spanish company so that the company can charge tolls on those roads. Drivers will be required to have an RFID tag in their car with will allow their movements to be tracked and cataloged that company (and the state will have access to that information, see http://www.austintollparty.com/). This is not just confined to Texas, there are similar plans in many other states.

The question has to be asked: why is there is this massive push for the governement to know where we are all of the time and have the ability to listen to us. This may just be the insipiant footprint of a police state.

However, whenever anybody is asked to site a case in which some poor schmuck actually got shafted by these laws, they suddenly fall silent.

Rather than them being silent, maybe you're just not listening.

Here's a repost of some relevant comments I made on this subject several months ago:

Here's a basic list of just a handful of abuses I came up:

• The PATRIOT act is being used in regular non-terrorism criminal cases . Anything beyond simple misdemenors is being passed off as terrorism , now.
• A webmaster was jailed under PATRIOT because someone had posted bomb making info on his server . Keep in mind that he didn't put the info there, he was basically a web host, and one of his clients was using his account this way. This is a particularly damning case of abuse where "Innocuous objects such as iced tea bottles and a toy car were described as terrorist devices by the FBI and a joint task force of police officers."
• A disturbing article about using the PATRIOT act to obtain warrants against doctors and scientists . Not because they've done anything wrong, but because they happen to do research with hazardous materials. Guilty before proven innocent.
• Story about someone killed by the PATRIOT act
• Several artists were charged with bioterrorism under PATRIOT for creating artwork meant to educate viewers in the dangers of the biotech industry.
• Story about a veteran being arrested for complaining too much due to the heightened terror alert.
• Shining a pocket laser into an airplane is terrorism falling under the PATRIOT act
• Article republished fromt the Washington post about American citizens held without trial
• A man being harrassed by a "joint terrorism task force" (the kind that has authority under the PATRIOT act) because of investigating Area 51
• Another "joint terrorism task force" investigating a 12 year old for doing a school paper on the Cesapeake Bay Bridge
• A photographer arrested and threatened with being charged under the PATRIOT act for taking pictures of Dick Cheney

And finally, maybe there haven't been as many abuses as there will be once all 2nd legal track the preparations are in place .

Yes. Everyone buys what I make, and I accumulate enough money to buy the world.

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBZXQZY18E.html

Good 'ol Bill claims that there aren't enough talent programmers in the States so he needs more than 65,000 foreign workers. I find that hard to believe as I can't go a day with out seeing something on the internet about software engineers with no jobs or offshoring etc etc. It obviously comes down to cost. Offshoring is cheaper. Maybe because they work for less, or maybe American programmers demand too much. I don't know the answer.

Do I want them to ignore their own products? No.

In the past physical products were cheaper to get from other locations because they were more abundant there or didn't exist where you were, i.e. silk, spice, cotton whatever.

Software development doesn't have those geographical advantages/disadvantages. It doesn't need to grow in a certain climate or be siphoned out of the ground where a bunch of dinosaurs used to live. If it can be made in texas just as easily as it can be in India/china/mars why not get it from texas (assuming you're in the states). Again, cost is the biggest factor.

Needing more employees is one thing, but going off shore to get them because "We're just not seeing an available labor pool" is crap

So many people either forget or don't bother with rebates that Best Buy would be crazy to abandon them. It's easy money in their pockets... not that I'm defending them or anything. Just looking at it from their point of view.

Please note that the identical AC post in this story was me, but I accidentally posted it as AC the first time.

Here's a basic list of just a handful of abuses I came up:

• The PATRIOT act is being used in regular non-terrorism criminal cases. Anything beyond simple misdemenors is being passed off as terrorism, now.
• A webmaster was jailed under PATRIOT because someone had posted bomb making info on his server. Keep in mind that he didn't put the info there, he was basically a web host, and one of his clients was using his account this way. This is a particularly damning case of abuse where "Innocuous objects such as iced tea bottles and a toy car were described as terrorist devices by the FBI and a joint task force of police officers."
• A disturbing article about using the PATRIOT act to obtain warrants against doctors and scientists. Not because they've done anything wrong, but because they happen to do research with hazardous materials. Guilty before proven innocent.
• Story about someone killed by the PATRIOT act
• Several artists were charged with bioterrorism under PATRIOT for creating artwork meant to educate viewers in the dangers of the biotech industry.
• Story about a veteran being arrested for complaining too much due to the heightened terror alert.
• Shining a pocket laser into an airplane is terrorism falling under the PATRIOT act
• Article republished fromt the Washington post about American citizens held without trial
• A man being harrassed by a "joint terrorism task force" (the kind that has authority under the PATRIOT act) because of investigating Area 51
• Another "joint terrorism task force" investigating a 12 year old for doing a school paper on the Cesapeake Bay Bridge
• A photographer arrested and threatened with being charged under the PATRIOT act for taking pictures of Dick Cheney

And finally, maybe there haven't been as many abuses as there will be once all 2nd legal track the preparations are in place.

Here's a basic list of just a handful of abuses I came up:

• The PATRIOT act is being used in regular non-terrorism criminal cases. Anything beyond simple misdemenors is being passed off as terrorism, now.
• A webmaster was jailed under PATRIOT because someone had posted bomb making info on his server. Keep in mind that he didn't put the info there, he was basically a web host, and one of his clients was using his account this way. This is a particularly damning case of abuse where "Innocuous objects such as iced tea bottles and a toy car were described as terrorist devices by the FBI and a joint task force of police officers."
• A disturbing article about using the PATRIOT act to obtain warrants against doctors and scientists. Not because they've done anything wrong, but because they happen to do research with hazardous materials. Guilty before proven innocent.
• Story about someone killed by the PATRIOT act
• Several artists were charged with bioterrorism under PATRIOT for creating artwork meant to educate viewers in the dangers of the biotech industry.
• Story about a veteran being arrested for complaining too much due to the heightened terror alert.
• Shining a pocket laser into an airplane is terrorism falling under the PATRIOT act
• Article republished fromt the Washington post about American citizens held without trial
• A man being harrassed by a "joint terrorism task force" (the kind that has authority under the PATRIOT act) because of investigating Area 51
• Another "joint terrorism task force" investigating a 12 year old for doing a school paper on the Cesapeake Bay Bridge
• A photographer arrested and threatened with being charged under the PATRIOT act for taking pictures of Dick Cheney

And finally, maybe there haven't been as many abuses as there will be once all 2nd legal track the preparations are in place.

In reality, when the guy sues, he was wounded seriously by a product which can be demonstrated to have left the factory in a defective condition. And there's large quantities of similarly defective products out there. And the factory is owned by a company that measures profits in the billions of dollars a year. The guy that 'invented' the safety equipment makes 40K a year, and might be laid off any day now. The people who profit from the invention spend their days sipping tea, getting their poodles groomed, drinking martinis, and wondering which around-the-world cruise might be best to give the grandchildren for a "Lincoln's Birthday" present.

would you like sinkholes with your tv

Yeah... some of the maps might be off, but there is equipment that can detect a huge pipe made of steel underground. It's not rocket science.

I've lived in hillsborough county(Tampa) since I was twelve, and I've done plenty of construction work down here, including digging holes for electric lines(IBEW). There is no excuse for this amount of incompetence. 1 incident, maybe, 5 incidents.... maybe, but 200 incidences in a couple months time is not acceptable at all.

99% of construction work, above or below ground is shoddy in Florida. Want proof? How about bringing a halt to the construction of a half-way done expressway, because part of it collapsed, and the rest of the columns are sinking past their tolerances(in hillsborough county no less). (See here) Cheap labor and lack of regulations lead to these kinds of messes.

Foreign Agents Registration Unit (FARA) Counterespionage Section [these are the people who evidently maintain the database in question]

The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) Unit administers the FARA and maintains a public office to make all registration materials available to the public. In addition, it administers and/or provides advice for certain other statutes related to either matters requiring registration with or notification to the Attorney General.

Public information (ANALOG only cause they use Sperry-Univacs rather than FAA vacuum tube computers - feel safer?) relating to the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) can be obtained in person at the FARA Registration Unit Public Office located at:

Department of Justice Registration Unit 1400 New York Avenue, N.W. 1st Floor - Public Office Suite 100 Washington, D.C. 20005

Researching Hours: 11 AM - 3 PM Mon. - Fri.
Filing Hours: 8:30 AM - 5 PM Mon. - Fri.

Did you check Google News? There are many publications reporting the same thing. For example, the article Senator Objects To Secrecy Of Voter List tell part of the story.

Is your post a case of "I don't like the news, therefore I will make a vague attack on the source?"

Look here, Slashdotters!

> You are ignoring the recent poll of Baghdad that Gallup did. 71 percent of those surveyed like our presence there and don't want us to leave any time soon.

Great! Now we only need to worry about the other six and a half million Iraqis.

U.S. Commander Reports Increase in Daily Attacks on Forces in Iraq
Published: Oct 22, 2003

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Ambush bombers struck Wednesday in the center of Baghdad and in the tense Sunni Muslim area west of the capital, as the commander of American forces reported an increase in attacks against occupation troops. ...

During a press conference, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, confirmed an increase in the number of attacks on American troops. Sanchez said the average of 20 to 25 attacks daily had increased over the last three weeks "to a peak of 35 attacks a day." He did not elaborate. ...

The homemade bomb in Baghdad exploded as a three-Humvee convoy passed through a tunnel under Tayeran Square... Local residents said U.S. Army convoys had been repeatedly targeted in the tunnel. "It's always the same," said traffic policeman Adnan Khadim. "They should stop using the tunnel." ...

A U.S. Army Humvee could be seen burning on the western edge of Fallujah. ... Witnesses said a roadside bomb exploded Wednesday morning as the convoy passed. ... After looting an abandoned vehicle, residents set it on fire as one man fired pistol shots into the wreckage in a sign of contempt. ...

According to this article Sharman Networks is sueing the RIAA for copyright violation for using Kazaa Lite instead of Kazaa to access its network. I submitted it, but, sadly, it was rejected. Thought people interested in the whole RIAA mess might get a kick out of it, though.

1. IT jobs remain in the United States of America (USA). American companies and especially small companies funded by Taiwanese money demand that H-1B workers be allowed to come to the USA in droves in order to fill a supposed shortage of workers.
2. IT jobs are exported to places like India and Taiwan. The H-1B visa program is shut down.

In both scenarios, native Americans are denied jobs that they deserve; however scenario #2 is actually better than scenario #1. Scenario #1 has fostered the growth of large ethnic communities that refuse to assimilate into American society. They consist largely of people who believe that Western culture is only for "white" people and who teach their kids that they should identify with their "ethnic" culture and people. These large ethnic communities also produce most of the spies who steal Western technology to give to Beijing. The two spies mentioned in "Two Men Arrested for Planning to Smuggle High-Tech Encryption Devices to China" grew up in Taiwan and came to the USA.

Scenario #2 will result in a reduction of those ethnic communities. This reduction does not mean that, for example, Chinese will not want to come to the USA. On the contrary, Indians, Chinese, Taiwanese, etc. will still demand to be allowed into the USA in huge numbers even though there will be plenty of IT jobs in India, China, Taiwan, etc. Why? Our Western way of life is superior to what exists in Indian, China, Taiwan, etc. Please read "Hospitals see mass resignations" and "SARS doctors' ethics put to the test" to sample the quality (or lack thereof) of life in Taiwan. Instead of treating SARS victims, the doctors prefer to hide the information about the illness or to resign.

As Slashdotters, let us work together as a community and lobby Congress to terminate the H-1B program and to reduce the combined immigration quota of China (which includes Hong Kong and Taiwan) from 60000 to 2000. Let us encourage companies like Intel to pursue scenario #2 instead of scenario #1. Intel has frequently lied about the need for H-1Bs. In the future, if Intel needs H-1Bs, Intel should set up a plant in India.

... from the desk of the reporter

1. The Taiwanese have invested more than $50 billion into more than 50,000 businesses in mainland China. How did the Taiwanese achieve this state of affairs? Shortly after the Tienanmen Square incident in 1990, the American government and American businesses froze or reduced investments in China. The Taiwanese seized this window of opportunity and poured financial and technological investments into mainland China. The Taiwanese completely thwarted American attempts at using economic sanctions to force the Chinese government improve its human-rights record. Afterwards, Taiwanese investments skyrocketed to their current level.
2. The Chinese son of the chairman of a powerful conglomerate in Taiwan has joined with the son of Jiang Zemin, the butcher of Tibet, to build an advanced silicon-wafer factory in Shanghai. (reference: "Sons of prominent Chinese team up on chip venture")
3. Senior Chinese military officials retired from the Taiwanese military have gone to mainland China and given military secrets about the American F-16 fighter jet to the Beijing government. (reference: "Military secrets on sale to China")
4. The Wall Street Journal reports that the majority of American spies who steal sensitive computer and military technology (like microprocessor blueprints) to give to mainland China are actually born and raised in Taiwan. Both spies mentioned in "Two Men Arrested for Planning to Smuggle High-Tech Encryption Devices to China" are born and raised in Taiwan.

We Americans should not kid ourselves. The Taiwanese strongly support mainland China. The Taiwanese give to mainland China any money or technology that we Americans refuse to give.

When we apply economic sanctions against mainland China, we must also apply the same sanctions against Taiwan. In our pursuit of human rights, when we boycott products that are made in China, we must also boycott products that are made in Taiwan. Specifically, when we boycott notebook computers made in China, we must also boycott notebook computers made in Taiwan. As the article notes, computers "made in Taiwan" are really "made in China".

We must immediately stop selling weapons to Taiwan. Taiwan is a very serious security risk to the United States of America (USA). Since 2000 May, the FBI has placed Taiwan on the list of nations that are prone to steal sensitive military and commercial technology from American national laboratories and companies. Please read "Reno calls Taiwan an intelligence threat". See point #4 above.

The aforementioned facts are quite shocking since many folks in the SlashDot community are reading these facts for the first time. It is understandable. The Taiwanese government has annually paid about $2 million to lobbying firms like "Cassidy & Associates" to peddle influence in the American government. (reference: Big Business Comes to Aid of China") Indeed, do you remember Charlie Trie, John Huang, and Johnny Chung? They were the key figures in the financial scandal that rocked the Democratic Party and were accused of bribing American officials. Both John Huang and Johnny Chung were born or raised in Taiwan.

If all these facts and the CNet article about Chinese laptops do not convince you that the Taiwanese support mainland China, then consider this tidbit. The Taiwanese constitution

1. Group 1 has these characteristics: (wealth, education, desire to assimilate) = (1, 1, 3). Immigrants in this group are typified by the Japanese and European immigrants who came to the USA during the early part of the 20th century. They are mentioned often in discussions of Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. Americans of Japanese ancestry volunteered to die in World War II in the defense of the USA.
2. Group 2 has these characteristics: (wealth, education, desire to assimilate) = (1, 1, 2). Immigrants in this group are typified by South American immigrants. Most of them prefer to cling to their own ethnic language: usually Spanish. They are ambivalent about acquiring Western values. They create their own community, which is large enough to support several ethnic-language television stations (e. g. Hispanic television). At the same time, there are notable exceptions among these South American immigrants. The Wall Street Journal, in 2003, reported that several Central-American immigrants admired the USA so much that they volunteered to join the American military and fought the tyranical regime of Saddam Hussein.
3. Group 3 has these characteristics: (wealth, education, desire to assimilate) = (3, 3, 1). Immigrants in this group are typified by Middle Easterners (e. g. Iranians, Palestinians), Chinese, Indians, and Koreans. They enter the USA by enrolling in primarily graduate school or secondarily undergraduate school at the university. They believe that "ethnicity" is determined by genes and that each "ethnicity" has a natural and normal culture. They believe that Western culture is only for "White" people and that Chinese culture (for examply) is only for Chinese people, where "Chinese" is an ethnicity. These immigrants believe that Western culture is equal to Chinese culture in quality and that Western brutality prevented non-Western societies from prospering. These immigrants insist that their children learn their "ethnic" language; if their children refuse to learn their "ethnic" language, then they are supposedly denying their "ethnicity". These immigrants and their descendents identify strongly with the country (i. e. not the USA) of their supposed "ethnicity". The immigrants in this group believe that the American high-technology industry -- and the entire American economy -- would collapse without the brainpower of immigrants. These immigrants have a proud view of their own capabilities. These immigrants believe that the USA needs them far more than they need the USA.

Group 3 is the group that produces most of the Taiwanese spies who steal American technology to give to Beijing. Both spies mentioned in "Two Men Arrested for Planning to Smuggle High-Tech Encryption Devices to China" are born and raised in Taiwan but emigrated to the USA. Katrina Leung is also from Group 3; she was recently arrested for giving national security secrets to Beijing. Please read "FBI Changing Counterintelligence Tactics". Group 3 is also the group that produces people like Maher Hawash.

Many of us in the SlashDot community attended college and obtained a technical degree. More than 50% of our classmates w